Germany urges Portugal to find savings after court setback

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Monday Portugal will have to find new savings after its constitutional court rejected some of the austerity measures introduced as a condition of an international bailout.

“Portugal has made lots of progress in the last year to gain access to financial markets. But after this (constitutional court) decision it will have to find new measures,” Schaeuble told a Bavarian radio station in an interview.

After the Portuguese court rejected four out of nine contested austerity measures from the budget last Friday, which could cost the state between 900 million and 1.3 billion euros, Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho pledged to cut spending.

(This story was refiled to add dropped word “minister” to lead paragraph)